When you rage quit, claiming you're leaving the forum for good ... only to come back to the forum to pizz, moan, criticize and judge from on high then your credibility is rather questionable.
Ah bless. Mr. Vindictive Stealth Troll Incarnate thinks he's got some leverage.
So point 1. I did not rage quit, that's just a pleasant fantasy of yours because you can't cope with critical or insulting comebacks even if they are true. Of all people I have to remind you if you can't take it you shouldn't dish it out, as the saying goes...
Point 2. I stopped flying the MA because in the time of the day / Timezone I have available to play there are on average 9-18 people online weekdays in the MA. All other arenas are now empty. Three quarters of those will either be hiding in bushes for extended periods in tanks, or milk running in bombers at 25k+ and if I'm lucky TechWrek, JimmyC & crew will be trying to take a base and I might get a fight which is mutually respectful and enjoyable. Usually later in the day or at the weekend J0ker's Jokers will start rolling their big mean fish finger production line machine - as per Dace's EXACT complaint (check the time slot). I can either try to hold them at bay single-handedly in a K-4 (with maybe one or two exceptions they can't stand dying and usually if they a co-e con they'll run off somewhere else) or just get vulched repeatedly while J0ker types 'pwnt' on channel 200. Either way I won't get a dogfight.
The game of Aces High as I knew it has gone away from players on my Timezone
*. So your comfortable go-to argument of 'you quit so you've got not'in to say' is way off. The game's dead for me and not by my choice. I wish it was different.
I did leave the forum in conjunction with leaving the MA planning to continue duelling friends and enemies in the MPA. My friends left to play other sims already. Blade was my only reliable enemy who lost interest once I'd found a technique to beat him reliably. Trying to host private arenas and the event of the introduction of AI to the MPA encouraged me to return / stay on the forum. Or perhaps I simply changed my mind. In any case, it's not for you to say who comes or goes and I pay no credibility to your informal fallacy of 'you once said this'. Like I offered you already three times, come and duel and you might even be able to overcome your own prejudices.
To the point of credibility:
*We watched the process of decline, reported and were ignored (cos it wasn't your reality yet) and now see exactly the same process encroaching on US Primetime. You can choose to ignore / devalue / argumentum ad hominem until you're blue in the face if you like, but you cannot address or dismiss the points being made about gameplay.
Of course lametard gameplay has always been present, like LilMak says, the reductive process reveals the dregs of gameplay and its influence PDQ.
The novelty of flying your I-16 out-numbered will wear off after several years (not that you have that, but...) where no matter how adept you become at ACM you will be nuetralised by ganging, ack-running, 88-mm, or the now pretty standard tactic that Caldera mentioned. My last Saturday in the MA I logged on in the morning to find a P-51D and a P-47 trying to drag people through their carrier's flak. When I logged in about 4 hours later to check there was any action the same two planes were doing exactly the same thing.
Face it: the RPS motif of the MA has been overcorrected to a communistic equality-of-outcome, participation medal arena by providing every possible way to avoid fighting and the prevailing in-arena culture now supports that too. Some RPS is good in balance with some competitive types. No balance, no sustainability.
I think that players who constantly complain about the game are causing people to leave and new players not to subscribe. when there's so many threads like this, new players will take one look and say what's the point.
This cannot be the case if you reason it through. That argument would depend on new players coming to the forum first - which I think they don't. All players of the game being forum members - which I think they aren't. And finally which came first? You suggest people complaining about the decline of gameplay have caused the decline of gameplay? This kind of thread might encourage existing players to examine the value of continuing, is that what you're trying to say? It should remain unspoken to keep the numbers artificially high rather than facing some harsh truths and trying to make the game sustainable again?
It’s the game play devolving too far down the path of least resistance. Which is human nature. The only one who can correct that is HT.
Yes I think you are right.
I also agree with Fugitive. Responding to trolling comments or weak arguments notwithstanding I see no point trying to initiate a constructive discussion anymore. Those remaining on this forum have no will or a profound inability or wish to adapt or be receptive to any kind of change. With Skuzzy's retirement I have to wonder if Mr. HiTech will simply ride out the dwindling subscriptions into retirement himself. Go fly his RV8 grinning like a monkey. Can't say I'd blame him.
Thanks all the same Dale (if I may be so bold), for a great game. I really learned a lot
